


If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.

by WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Bunny is somewhat more likeable, M/M, Maurice references of all things, and they were ROOMMATES, bunny still dies, retelling of the murder, richard siken should get a writing credit somewhere here, this fic exists somewhere between prose and poetry, very poetic smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:48:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25081156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch/pseuds/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch
Summary: It wasn’t supposed to end like this. They had been killing each other always but the fun of it all was that they would do it again tomorrow. There would be no coming back from this.___In which Bunny reflects on his and Henry's history. History Richard would have had no knowledge of.
Relationships: Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran/Henry Winter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.

**Author's Note:**

> Here is to hoping this is formated correctly. It's relevant I swear.

I.  
The Killer  
“Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake   
and dress them in warm clothes again.”

It would always be by his hand. Bunny isn’t sure why his heart still leaps in surprise when he stumbles upon his friends standing in the clearing. 

The air vibrates with nerves, with great meaning.

Henry speaks of ferns. Of course, he does, he’s always loved plants. Lots of people thought Henry possessed a green thumb but the truth is he tended to over water his plants.

…

‘Lay off them’ Bunny lays sprawled across Henry’s bed, his shoes still on.

‘It’s Tuesday. I water them on Tuesday.’ Henry, with his wine glass full of water, portioned out the liquid between the yellowing plants on the window sill. Bunny pitied the things. Henry’s schedule was going to kill them.

‘I know what I’m doing, Bunny.’

‘They're all going to die.’

Henry stalked back to his bed and pulled Bunny forward by one ankle , ‘no shoes on my bed.’ Bunny laughed, Henry pulled again and dropped the glass.

‘Look what you've done’ 

Bunny laughed wriggling away in the brief moment of Henry’s shock, ‘what you’ve done.’  
…

This isn’t Bunny’s fault, not really. He had been acting like a normal person. Normal people act out when they learn their friends killed a man in some cultish ritual in the middle of the woods. 

He’d been cruel, but he didn’t want to be like them. He’d been cruel, but he was scared. 

Henry steps forward. Bunny steps back.

His hands come up like they will do anything to stop this. Like his hands have ever done anything to stop this. Like Henry has ever asked him what he’d like. 

…

Henry had been the one to set room rules. He handwrote them out with a pen worth more than all the belongings Bunny had brought with him. No music, No bringing girls back to the room, No leaving clothing on the floor, No leaving the door unlocked. 

‘That’s quite the list of no’s, old man. You got to live a little, it’s what college is for.’

‘I’ve lived. Don’t call me old man.’

‘Have you?’

Bunny sits down on the edge of Henry’s desk, ‘you got a little girly at home then? A farmer gal to play house with, make you scrambled eggs the morning after?’

Henry elbows him off the desk and lifts the paper off and shakes it once, twice, like there is something stuck to the page. ‘No. No one at home.’ 

‘Me? I’ve always got someone. My parents always told me I was real handsome, I had to be careful not to let it get to my head, but I tend to do well with the ladies.’

‘You're not very good at being alone are you?’

…

Bunny wishes he had been a little better at being alone. If he didn’t hate eating alone so much, maybe Henry wouldn’t be looking at him like that right now. If he had known how to finish his homework on his own, if he had paid for dinner for himself, if, if, if. 

If he had been better. If he had been an island.

Was this judgment day? What a god. What an ending.

Cold, wet, air. Cold, dry silence. Cold, hard hands grabbing him by the lapel. Stumbling back and back and he wants to plead for deliverance, but no one ever teaches you how to plead for your life. No one tells you what to do when your best friend holds you over oblivion and looks at you like you never shared clothing, a room, a warm bottle of port.

The others are there, sure, but it’s always been Henry and him. It would be him and Henry always. It was always going to be this way. 

The blank stare, fated. The release of his collar, fated. The etern spent falling, fated.

What an ending.

II.  
The Lover  
“Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.”

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. They had been killing each other always but the fun of it all was that they would do it again tomorrow. There would be no coming back from this.

…

The first night, Henry had undressed in the bathroom down the hallway and come back to their little room freshly laundered in seemingly starched pajamas.

‘Are you gonna do that every time?’

‘I needed to brush my teeth.’

They don’t speak about it again but it’s another month until Henry actually undresses in their room. Not that Bunny cares, not that he’s been waiting to discover the secret of Henry’s flesh.  
He loves not caring as Henry undresses every night. He gets home early from parties not to care.

…

The skin of Henry’s wrist is exposed, all Bunny registers is the whiteness of it. Snow. Winter. It’s almost funny.

…

‘What’s your name? I’m Edmund Corcoran. No one calls me Ed or Eds or Eddie and I’d rather not start that now’ he sticks out his hand. It hangs in the space between them untouched. Bunny tucks his fist in his pocket.

‘Henry.’

‘Well, what's your family name? Or are you one of those secretive ones. Your father commit murder or something? Are you a prince?’

‘Winter. Henry Winter.’

…

Henry Winter is going to kill him. He’s been killing him all this time, really. 

Henry is going to kill him. Henry is going to send him reeling backward into an endless back night and he’s not going to fight him. Henry wants him to fight. Henry, Henry, Henry.

…

‘Henry, Henry, Henry’ it's a prayer and a plea and all he can say to keep himself from shouting ‘stop’ because this is a divinity his father taught him to shun.

It’s binding, the way it washes over him. Henry mumbles all sorts of things, scraps of the mind. Henry comes apart into fragments, shards. Bunny can not translate what he’s saying but he hopes it's ‘I love you.’ He hopes it’s anything but ‘I love you.’

…

He loves him now, in a way. Some people know the thing they love will kill them. Heroin addicts see it coming. 

Bunny never did hard drugs. He’ll die never really having been properly high.

It’s heady and dizzying, waiting for your best friend to kill you. They should bottle the feeling. 

…

Bottles on the ground, a cup shattered, red wine stains on the carpet neither of them own, but Henry can afford to replace. Henry smiles; he loves broken things.

…

Bunny watches his lips, waits for a cruel smirk, nothing comes. He’s waiting for it to be malicious. It would be easier to hate him. This would be so much simpler if he hated him.

…

Bunny’s always asking for it to hurt, Henry hates that he likes that. Bunny knows it makes Henry feel like a god. He watches his eyes, Henry never closes them. 

‘Look at me’ Henry says, taking up space within him. Bunny wants to scream, he wants nothing more, he wants nothing less.

‘Look at me’ Bunny can’t look. That would make this real. 

He needs this unreality more than anything, ‘Look at me.’

So he meets his eyes because he wants it to hurt.

…

He meets his eyes because he wants it to hurt. He’s always wanted it to hurt this bad. He lets Henry walk him back, and back. Bunny grabs his wrist, he wants to leave something of himself there. The bruises will take weeks to fade. He’s immortalized himself on Henry's skin.

…

Henry holds him down, ‘I can’t’ ‘you can.’ Bunny can’t remember who said what.  
‘Perfect, you're perfect,’ A hand on his thigh. It’ll bruise. A hand around his neck. It’ll bruise. 

He knows Henry wants more, he knows Henry wants to hit him. He can see in the set of his jaw how badly he needs to break him, how badly he doesn’t want to hurt him.

‘Let go Henry,’ he manages

…

Henry lets go.

III.  
The God  
“Tell me we’ll never get used to it.”

You have always been falling; there is a vast and endless peace approaching you rapidly. It’s almost graceful. You're dead before you hit the ground. You eternally are, until you aren't. 

You have been barreling towards this from the start. This was fated. The gods are palpable this day in April.

You were meant for nothing but this, this flight, this airy ending.

You don’t call out, there is nothing to say. You’ve said it all already. 

He’ll join you soon at the bottom of the ravine, he’ll check your neck, he’ll feel around for your heart. Finally, you will be still under his touch.

Your last words should be ‘why?’ or ‘did you love me?’ or ‘et tu?’ 

But you have no questions. You know.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and Khaíre
> 
> If you enjoyed it, let me know! This is a bit of a stylistic departure from some of my other work, but I find I quite like it! leave a comment if you have a moment :)


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